Greenpeace urges DENR to junk Negros Coal Power Project

Group does banner protest inside DENR compound

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Press release - March 2, 2001

Activists from the international environmental group Greenpeace today carried out a banner protest inside the compound of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in support of local demands for the new government to immediately recall the controversial environmental clearance given by ex-DENR Secretary Antonio Cerilles to a dirty coal fired power plant project in Pulupandan, Negros Occidental.

Activists from the international environmental group Greenpeace
today carried out a banner protest inside the compound of the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in support
of local demands for the new government to immediately recall the
controversial environmental clearance given by ex-DENR Secretary
Antonio Cerilles to a dirty coal fired power plant project in
Pulupandan, Negros Occidental.

"Time and again, we have seen the DENR betray its primary
mandate of environmental protection in favor of big commercial and
anti-environment interests. The midnight ECC issued by Cerilles to
the Pulupandan Coal Plant is just the latest among this agency's
growing list of abuses against the environment and the people. The
new administration needs to make a clean break from its
predecessors' dirty past, and that could very well begin with the
scrapping of the ECC granted to the Pulupandan coal project," said
energy campaigner Red Constantino, of Greenpeace Southeast
Asia.

Constantino added that this demand is consistent with the
progressive position adopted by the Philippine goven1l11ent in the
ongoing global climate treaty negotiations seeking to curb the use
of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. "While the government has
always adopted a strong position in favor of climate protection in
the international arena, it has also continuously negated itself
with its seeming over-emphasis on the construction and operation of
coal power stations. We cannot afford the spectacle of a
schizophrenic environmental agency," he stressed.

The Greenpeace activists unfurled a long banner demanding "Clean
Energy Now" on top of the front canopy of the main DENR building to
underscore the group's appeal for the Philippine goverl1lnent to
abandon dirty energy projects and put greater premium instead on
the development of clean and sustainable solutions like wind and
solar energy projects. The group also replaced the DENR flag with a
"clean energy campaign flag?' to remind the agency of its forgotten
primary mandate of environmental protection.

The protest action is actually part of a globally coordinated
action by Greenpeace in 14 countries to pressure governments,
particularly those belonging to the elite G8 group of rich
countries, to implement strong measures to reverse climate
destruction and promote clean energy production.

The G8, led by the United States, is derailing the adoption of
strong measures to save the climate in the Climate Treaty
negotiations. Environment ministers of the G8 are currently meeting
in Trieste, Italy.*

In January, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) reported after five years of research that "
there is new and stronger evidence that most of the observed
warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human
activities." Furthermore, the anticipated increase in temperature
over the next century has increased to 1.4- 5.8 Celsius and "the
projected rate of warning is much larger than the observed changes
during the 20th century and is very likely without precedent during
at least the last 10,000 years.*

"These scientific findings confirm our worst fears that island
nations such as the Philippines will be most vulnerable to the
devastating effects of climate change especially in terms of sea
level rise, extreme weather events and loss of biodiversity," said
Constantino. "There is no doubt we are facing a climate emergency.
The time to embrace real solutions has never been more urgent than
now," he added.

Notes: More recently, in Geneva, a second report from the IPCC concluded that current rates of human-induced climate change. . .
· risk large scale and irreversible impacts, such as the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the shutting down of the Gulf Stream, and massive releases of greenhouse gases from melting permafrost and dying forests;
· will have severe impacts on a regional level. For instance, megacities and densely populated areas along the Pacific and Indian Ocean coastlines will be caught between the threats of sea-level rise and river flooding from increased upstream precipitation;
· will increase extreme weather events in temperate and tropical Asia, including floods, droughts, forest fires and tropical cyclones;
· and will have the greatest impacts on those least able to protect themselves from rising sea levels, increase in disease and decrease in agricultural production in the developing countries in Africa and Asia.